Abstract
Functional environmental screening of metagenomic libraries is a powerful means to identify and assign function to novel genes and their encoded proteins without any prior sequence knowledge. In the current study we describe the identification and subsequent analysis of a salt-tolerant clone from a human gut metagenomic library. Following transposon mutagenesis we identified an unknown gene (stlA, for “salt tolerance locus A”) with no current known homologues in the databases. Subsequent cloning and expression in Escherichia coli MKH13 revealed that stlA confers a salt tolerance phenotype in its surrogate host. Furthermore, a detailed in silico analysis was also conducted to gain additional information on the properties of the encoded StlA protein. The stlA gene is rare when searched against human metagenome datasets such as MetaHit and the Human Microbiome Project and represents a novel and unique salt tolerance determinant which appears to be found exclusively in the human gut environment.
Disciplines
Biology
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0082985
Full Publication Date
December 2013
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Funder Name 1
Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
Resource Type
journal article
Access Rights
open access
License Condition
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Alternative Identifier
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082985
Recommended Citation
Culligan, E.P. et al., 2013. Functional Environmental Screening of a Metagenomic Library Identifies stlA; A Unique Salt Tolerance Locus from the Human Gut Microbiome G. Moreno-Hagelsieb, ed. PLoS ONE, 8(12), p.e82985. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082985.
Publication Details
PLOS ONE
Copyright © 2013 Culligan, E.P. et al.
EPC is funded by Science Foundation Ireland under the CSET Uplift Grant. We acknowledge the continued financial assistance of the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, funded by Science Foundation Ireland. JRM acknowledges funding from The Royal Society which supports the bioinformatic cluster (Hive) at Cardiff University, School of Biosciences. RDS is an ESCMID Research Fellow. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.